Step off, Clef: groups fresher than Doug E.

It's that time of year again. When the snow stops falling—sometimes—and the freshmen return to playing frisbee on Old Campus, and the YCC brings in bands the whole student body can agree upon. Well, almost. But hey, those big-time acts aren't the real reason Spring Fling and WYBC MusicFest are worth going to—no, there is one thing that makes it all OK and fun. No, not drugs, though those help, too. I'm talking about the student bands, the kids who come out of hiding, take the stage, and often blow us away far more than the big name and big money (anyone recall the pricetag for the Indigo Girls?) acts. So A&E decided to do a little Spring Fling student band preview interview. We asked all five student bands performing this weekend to answer roughly the same dozen questions. They answered most of them.

The Yale Herald: This is the basic background information question: when did your band form, how, etc.?

Nuts in Your Mouth: ODB said it best: "I came out my momma's pussy."

Six Pack Annie (Victor Kao, TC '00): This band formed in 1997 because I wanted to be in a band. Everybody else is just a hired and very disposable studio musician. I own the rights to the name "Six Pack Annie" so I can fire them anytime I want. They know this, of course, so they do what I tell them. Six Pack Annie is Victor Kao, and don't you forget it.

Indira: After five female singers, four bad haircuts, three temper tantrums, and two nicotine addictions, we have settled with the four people you will see on Saturday. A few members have come and gone, but the sound and feel has always been the same.

Full Service: The band really took off this year, because last year I [David Kepner, DC '03] was in high school and couldn't make it to many gigs in Amherst and stuff. The rest of the guys go to Amherst College. My brother and the guitarist, Tim Kepner, the bassist, Kevin Downes '01, and the singer, Bert Moreno '02. Tim and I have been playing together since we were in grade school, often just playing songs from Guns N' Roses' Appetite for Destruction and Pearl Jam's Ten and stuff like that. When Tim went to college he formed a new band. They struggled to find a singer, until Bert stumbled in drunk one night on a jam. He yelled, "Hey, I can sing. I've been singing in the shower my whole life." Then, as the band played "Sweet Emotion" by Aerosmith, Bert let out a dead-on Steven Tyler scream. Since then he's been the singer, and then about a year later, I joined in.

YH: Where did you come up with your name?

NIYM: I was talking to this one producer about what we should call ourselves. She was giving all kinds of suggestions that were real dope, but I just couldn't understand her 'cause I had my nuts in her mouth.

SPA (Kao): It's a movie about a daughter who turns tricks to save her mother's struggling diner. It's pretty appropriate if you knew what kind of people we are. We're all big sluts.

FS: We went through a series of really bad names like "Naked April," but then one of our friends suggested "Full Service." We don't know where they came up with it. Probably from signs at the gas station, or ads in porn magazines for phone-sex, in which they promise "full service." But it sounded good, so we took it. Sextones: Duh!

YH: Who are your musical influences?

SPA (Ryan Hickox, SY '00): Phish. Third Eye Matchbox and Britney Spears. Plus, well, everyone knows that we sound exactly like Rage Against the Machine. We also sound like Tate's farts on a good day.

YH: Are you guys any good?

NIYM: Ten thousand unwed mothers can't be wrong.

SPA (Peter Farris, SY '01): We're the best fucking band this pathetic University will ever see.

SEX: People say that life is a cesspool of darkness and despair. Well, we are sailing through it in a yacht!

YH: Do you have groupies? If not, why not?

SPA (Kao): We have friends who drop by our shows. I've gotten so little sex from being in this band, it's ridiculous.

SEX: Yes, just a half-dozen scantily-clad women who fellate us while baking cookies. And our drug dealer.

IN (Rich Lathrop, ES '00): Yes, and you can't have them.

IN (Peter Smith, CC '00): Even if you offer your nuts in their mouth!

NIYM: Groupies is a fucked-up word. We don't use it. There's our crew, and there's our bitches. If you don't distinguish, you could have your dealer suckin' your cock while some skinny ho tries to roll the L.

YH: What's the most rock 'n' roll thing you've done at Yale?

SPA (Hickox): Ha ha ha ha! Okay; so one time I have 13 naked chicks backstage, each one hotter than the last...They couldn't stay off me, so I said to our manager...

SPA (Kao): Snuggled up in bed with a copy of War and Peace and a cup of hot tea.

YH: If your band were a sexual position, what position would it be and why?

NIYM: We believe in responsible sex. I'd be droppin' a condom on the carpet while I bust out the door.

SPA (Farris): The tossed salad.

YH: What are you going to do that will make your set special for Spring Fling?

SPA (Farris): I own a handgun.

SPA (Kao): We will throw feces at the crowd unless they start applauding. Not the normal brown "I ate lots of fiber today" kind either. I'm talking about the "I've had dysentery for a while" type of feces.

SEX: Two words: assless pants.

YH: What do you think about Wyclef Jean? How do you feel about his being chosen to play Spring Fling?

SPA (Farris): I think Wyclef is a perfect example of how not to put on an event. The people running Spring Fling are like chickens with their heads cut off. They didn't even know what a PA system was until yesterday.

FS: With all due respect to Mr. Jean, I think he wasn't the best choice. I mean he's good, but I think if we could've gotten Cypress Hill, that would have been better. I just wish he wouldn't say "uh-lookie lookie lookie here, shorty" so much.

IN: We would have preferred the Barenaked Ladies.

NIYM: I wouldn't say he's a bad...He's a step in the right direction.

SEX: He's OK, for a white guy.

YH: Who would win in a fight, you or Wyclef?

SPA (Farris): I could kill that motherfucker so easily.

YH: Who would win in a beauty contest, you or Wyclef?

SPA (Hickox): Why do you ask these childish questions? That's ridiculous. It's as if everyone at this school is caught up in some bullshit notion of what it means to be in a band and make music, as if you're always trying to outdo the next guy and as if the music doesn't really matter, that we do all this shit, this writing, rehearsing, just so we posture well and look good in photographs. It's time students took their student bands seriously. Some of them are really good. We're out there to entertain you, but with music, not with some stupid hackneyed representation of pop culture. Most—and once again, I mean most—of the other bands would agree with me.

IN: Rich would win.

YH: What do you want to be when you grow up?

FS: A rock 'n' roll star. That or a full-time member of Allen Iverson's entourage.

SPA (Hickox): A successful scientist. Seriously.

SPA (Kao): A professional killer.

YH: Got anything else to say?

FS: Check out www.fullserviceband.com.

IN: Only on stage...if you can hear us.

SEX: I used to have a drug problem. Now I make more than enough money.

NIYM: We expect all the hot bitches to come out to the show, light they-selves on fire, spread open the teeth, and teabag deez here niz-nuggets.

[Replies given represent the band's consensus unless otherwise noted.]

Graphic by Shawn Cheng.

Other colleges, other flings

Brown (Sat., Apr. 15): G. Love and Special Sauce, The Samples, Melissa Ferrick, and MC Paul Barman.

Columbia (Sun., Apr. 16): "Spring Outdoor Concert." Columbia Wind Ensemble performing songs from Rodgers & Hammerstein's My Fair Lady, Hello Dolly, and The King and I.

Harvard (Sat., Apr. 15): Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.

UPenn (Sat., Apr. 15): Quadramics presents the Spring Fling Musical, A Little Night Music, by Stephen Sondheim.

Tufts (Sat., Apr. 29): The Roots.

Vassar (Sat., Apr. 15): Earth Day (!) with music, games, food, vendors. Fun for all ages (except 18-22—ed).

NYU (Thurs., Apr. 27): Built to Spill, Superchunk, and Apples in Stereo.

Back to A&E...